Chapter 1317:
He looked at it for a moment, but made no move to take it.
“Melany,” he said, his voice quieter and more deliberate than usual, “we’ve known each other for a year now. During that time, I’ve fixed things around your place, gone grocery shopping with you, picked up your daughter when you were working late, and sat with you at the hospital when she was sick.”
Melany went still.
She had never once asked him for help, and she had always been quick to return his kindness. But hearing him list it all like this stirred a faint, uncomfortable feeling she couldn’t entirely dismiss.
He continued, his tone steady. “I know you carry things that aren’t easy to leave behind. And I have my own reasons for everything I’ve done.”
𝖭o𝘃еl𝗌 𝘪𝗇 t𝗿еո𝖽 oո g𝗮𝘭𝗻𝗼𝘷е𝘭𝗌.𝘤оm
He looked at the suit in her hands and said quietly, “I can’t accept this. If I do, everything between us becomes neighbors keeping score—trading favors back and forth.”
Melany lifted her eyes to meet his, already understanding what he was moving toward.
“Carlos…”
“I’ve decided to return to Eshea,” Melany said quietly, her tone gentle but firm. “Still—thank you for everything you’ve done.”
Without pausing to think, Carlos blurted out, “Then I’ll come with you. I can find work there too—it won’t be a problem.”
“No.” She held back the emotion rising inside her and spoke calmly, deliberately. “It’s better if you don’t get too involved, Carlos… especially if you want to keep your life the way it is.”
What she intended as a warning, he heard as something else entirely—a challenge, a call to step forward and be the one to pull her out of the shadows of her past. Rather than discouraging him, her words only deepened his resolve to stay by her side.
After seeing Melany again, Deandre couldn’t sleep. His thoughts churned restlessly until he finally picked up his phone and sent a message to Rylie.
“I saw her.”
To Rylie, it felt as though the long-stalled gears of fate between Melany and Deandre had finally begun to turn.
After a brief moment of thought, she forwarded him a file of information along with a message of her own.
“Deandre, Melany is no longer the person she used to be. She’s a mother now—and a successful woman in her own right. I hope you’ve learned what patience truly means. Try to be more like Marcus. Be gentle with her.”
If Deandre chose to act as he once had—forceful and unyielding—Rylie knew the outcome would be one she never wanted to see.
As he went through the file, Deandre finally saw what Melany’s life had looked like over the past two years.
.
.
.